🇸🇩 Tax Refunds for Sudanese Doctors and Workers in Ireland: No Treaty, Hospital Rotations, Leaving After IMGTI and Family Abroad

Is there a tax treaty between Ireland and Sudan?

• While you're Irish resident, your salary is taxed in Ireland with the same credits, bands and reliefs as anyone else, and refunds work exactly the same with or without a treaty. Residence is a day count: 183 days in the tax year, or 280 over this year and last with more than 30 this year (Revenue).
• In a year you're not Irish resident, Revenue gives no personal tax credits to non-residents who aren't EU citizens or citizens of a country with a tax treaty with Ireland (Revenue). A Sudanese citizen in that position pays tax on Irish pay with no credits at all, which is why the timing of your arrival and departure years matters more for you than for an Egyptian or Ethiopian colleague. In your arrival year you can choose to be resident if you'll be resident the following year, which brings back the credits (tell Revenue in writing); there's no equivalent in the year you leave.
• Income taxed in both countries. With no treaty there's no treaty credit. For rent from a property in Sudan or Egypt, Revenue lets you deduct the foreign tax from the rent before Irish tax is worked out (Revenue), which isn't a euro-for-euro credit. Our foreign rental income guide and remittance basis guide explain when Ireland taxes it at all.
• Sudan's own rules. We couldn't find a reliable, current summary of Sudanese personal income tax from the large advisory firms, so we don't quote rates here. Whatever Sudan does, it can't change your Irish liability, and with no treaty there's no Irish credit for any Sudanese tax on your Irish salary. If you still have income or a practice in Sudan, ask a Sudanese adviser.
• Africa's treaties for comparison. Ireland has treaties in effect with Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia and Botswana; see the full list and, for a neighbour with one, the Egyptian guide.

What are Sudanese doctors in Ireland most likely owed?

• Flat rate expense. Revenue's list gives hospital doctors, including consultants, €695 a year, and the Irish Medical Council subscription is built into it, so don't claim the retention fee again on top. It's a deduction: €278 a year at 40%, €1,112 for 2022 to 2025 if you were above the band each year. Pharmacists get €400 and nurses €733 to €258 depending on the uniform arrangement. What else doctors can and can't deduct, from indemnity to college fees, is in tax deductions for doctors in Ireland.
• Exam fees and courses. Membership exams (MRCPI, MRCS and similar) and the fees for sitting them aren't deductible against salary as a rule. A postgraduate course at a college on Revenue's approved list can qualify for tuition fees relief: 20% of fees above the €3,000 disregard (€1,500 if all your courses are part-time), up to €7,000 per course.
• Married credit when your family is abroad. If you're married and your spouse isn't resident in Ireland, wherever they are (Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or elsewhere), payroll treats you as single. After the year ends you can ask for aggregation relief: with no income on their side, the full married credit (€4,000 instead of €2,000 for 2025) and the married one-income band (€53,000 instead of €44,000); with some income, a proportion based on your Irish share. Revenue can ask for evidence of your spouse's income; if a Sudanese authority can't issue a statement, keep what you have and ask Revenue what it will accept. See spouse living abroad.
• Rent Tax Credit. 20% of the rent you paid, capped at €500 for 2022 and 2023 and €1,000 a year from 2024 (double for a jointly assessed couple), never more than your income tax for the year. Hospital-provided accommodation often doesn't qualify: the credit needs a tenancy that's registered with the RTB where registration is required, or a room in the landlord's own home, and on-site residences are often licences instead. Ask the hospital for the RTB registration number before you claim; see our Rent Tax Credit guide.
• Parents and relatives displaced abroad. Money you send isn't deductible, but the Dependent Relative Tax Credit, €305 a year for 2025 and 2026 (€245 for 2022 to 2024), applies to a widowed parent, or a relative who can't maintain themselves because of old age or infirmity, if you maintain them and their income is within the limit (€17,404 for 2024, €18,028 for 2025, €18,548 for 2026). The relative can live in any country. Medical bills you pay for them abroad get 20% relief too: see sending money home.
• Locums at another hospital. A second employment gets no credits and no standard rate band unless you split them, so it's taxed at 40% from the first euro. On a registrar's salary that's usually the right rate; it comes back only if your total income for the year stays within the 20% band, which happens in a part year. See tax on a second job.

What happens to your tax at each hospital rotation?

• What to check. On the first payslip from a new employer, look for your tax credits and your standard rate cut-off point. If either is zero, or the tax looks like 40% on everything, the employer hasn't got your Revenue Payroll Notification yet.
• Emergency tax. No credits: 40% on everything from the first payslip if the employer doesn't have your PPSN, or from week 5 if it has your PPSN but the job isn't registered. Check that the new job is listed in myAccount under Jobs and Pensions; if it isn't, add it (PAYE Services, "Add Job or Pension Details") with the employer registration number and start date, and the refund normally appears in the next pay run. See emergency tax.
• Two employers in one month. At changeover your credits can sit with the old employer for a few weeks. If you're still being paid by both, use myAccount to put your credits and band on the main job.
• If it wasn't fixed during the year, the overpayment comes back when you review the year in myAccount and file the Income Tax Return. Your Employment Detail Summary shows every employer that reported pay for you.

Leaving Ireland at the end of an IMGTI placement

• Why IMGTI doctors are exposed. The HSE's International Medical Graduate Training Initiative places trainees, including from the Sudan Medical Specialisation Board, for a fixed period, with an agreement to return home for at least 12 months at the end; extensions granted after the war began have not all been renewed (Medical Independent, November 2024). Placements end mid-year, so the departure year is almost always a part year.
• Are you still resident in the year you leave? Usually yes. 183 days in the year makes you resident; and if you were here all of the previous year, the 280-day rule makes you resident for the departure year as long as you spend more than 30 days here in it. Being resident keeps your full credits.
• Split Year Treatment. If you're resident in the year you leave and won't be resident the following year, employment income you earn abroad after leaving is ignored for Irish tax. For departures from 1 January 2025 you claim it on the Income Tax Return. Our leaving Ireland guide explains it and the refund in full.
• If you're not resident in the year you leave (for example, you leave in January after 30 days or fewer in Ireland that year, or you arrived late the year before and leave with fewer than 183 days this year and fewer than 280 over the two years), Irish pay that year is taxed with no credits, because there's no treaty. Check the day count before you book the flight.
• Before you go. Keep an Irish bank account open, put the IBAN in myAccount, download the Employment Detail Summary for every open year and keep your rent receipts.

Worked example: registrar leaving in July, wife and mother in Cairo

Starting data (assumptions): Osman was paid €5,500 a month by one employer for seven months, €38,500 in total, on the normal cumulative basis with the single credits (€2,000 personal and €2,000 employee) and the €44,000 single standard rate band on his payroll record. He spent 212 days in Ireland in 2025, so he's resident for 2025, and he isn't resident in 2026. His wife was not resident in Ireland and had no income; his mother is widowed, has no income and depends on the money he sends her. He paid €1,500 a month rent on an RTB-registered tenancy with an unrelated landlord, €10,500 for the seven months. He's a hospital doctor (flat rate expense €695) and claimed nothing during the year. USC and PRSI aren't included.

The refund splits into €4,233.33 from leaving mid-year (as a single person his €38,500 would all sit inside the €44,000 band: €7,700 − €4,000 = €3,700 owed against €7,933.33 paid), €2,000 from the married credit, €139 from the flat rate expense (€695 × 20%), €1,000 of Rent Tax Credit and €305 for his mother. The married band adds nothing here because all his income was already within the single band. We've kept the Rent Tax Credit at the single €1,000 cap: aggregation relief isn't joint assessment. If he'd stayed for the whole year on €66,000, the married band would have been worth €1,800 and the flat rate expense €278.

What if your family joins you in Ireland?

• Tell Revenue you're married in myAccount and choose joint assessment once your spouse is resident; see joint assessment and the arrival-year section of spouse living abroad.
• Children's costs. Medical bills for your children are 20% relief like your own. If you're jointly assessed and your spouse cares at home for a child you get Child Benefit for, the Home Carer Tax Credit (€1,950 for 2025) may apply, in full if their own income is €7,200 or less; Revenue gives it or the increased band for a second income, whichever is worth more.
• Tax and immigration are separate. A family reunification application doesn't change how you're taxed, and claiming the credits you're entitled to is ordinary tax compliance.

What Revenue actually asks for

1. Sign in to myAccount with your PPSN and add your IBAN to your Revenue profile.
2. Under PAYE Services, choose Review your tax for the previous 4 years and request a Statement of Liability or Preliminary End of Year Statement for the year. If you've left and the year hasn't ended, use "Claim unemployment repayment" instead.
3. Complete the Income Tax Return: add flat rate expenses (hospital doctors), the Rent Tax Credit with the tenancy's RTB number and your landlord's details, and the Dependent Relative Tax Credit with your parent's details and income.
4. For aggregation relief, record that you're married, state that you're electing for aggregation because your spouse isn't resident, and declare your spouse's income for the year: none, or the amount in euro. Keep your marriage certificate and whatever evidence of their income you can get.
5. In the year you leave, enter your departure date and claim Split Year Treatment if you won't be resident the next year.
6. Repeat for each year from 2022 to 2025, and keep your records for six years.

If you'd rather not file four years yourself, our Tax Back service does it for you. No refund, no fee.

Where do you start?

If your placement ends in 2026 or 2027, check your bank details in myAccount now and claim the open years before you go. If you were already working here in 2022, start with 2022: it closes for good on 31 December 2026, and the flat rate expense and the married credit for that year are lost with it.

Related reading

• Leaving Ireland: the refund and Split Year Treatment
• Spouse living abroad: the married tax credit
• Sending money home: what you can claim
• Dependent Relative Tax Credit for parents abroad
• Emergency tax in Ireland
• Egyptian workers in Ireland: the neighbour with a treaty
• Tax guides by nationality

Questions we get asked